As someone that has been gaming since I was in elementary school and well into my late 20s, I feel like it’s a lot simpler than that. It’s the same reason why people do anything in excess when times are tough. Addiction is addiction. Besides the physical aspects of addiction or actual hard drugs like heroine, most can be boiled down to the same conclusion. “The world is shit and [blank] makes me feel better.” The problem occurs, like with most addictions, when it’s the only thing you care about anymore. Wanna hang out with friends? Nah, I’d rather do [blank]. Wanna do [blank] with friends? Why? I can do [blank] at home.
I’ll say one thing, though. At least in Minecraft I can have a house.
This is definitely a huge part of addictions. There are a few side-topics to some addictions (withdrawal for drugs, “winning back money” for gambling, dark patterns for games, …), but the basic part for addictions is always trying to escape reality.
Same boat, started gaming in 1998 at age 4. I had a teen gaming phase but even that was mild compared to the apathy I experienced back in the days.
Teenagers with mental health issues do things they can disassociate into to a compulsive degree? Next you’re gonna say that teens with mental health issues are more likely to abuse chemical substances, or sleep all day, or maladaptive daydream, or spend days on end doing nothing but their preferred athletic…
Yeah teens with mental health issues are prone to do whatever gets them out of the bad thoughts.
